


The Memory Remains

by nwspaprtaxis, tolakasa



Series: Long Way Home [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Canon Compliant, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Time Travel, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18822277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolakasa/pseuds/tolakasa
Summary: He thought he remembered them all.





	The Memory Remains

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably make much more sense if you read "Take The Long Way Home" first. As with that story, this is based solely on the movies. Please do not poke the time travel bear or nitpick us on comics/TV continuity.
> 
>  **tolakasa:** One fic, I didn't mind so much. But then the damned "what ifs" started up again.... And *somebody* encouraged me.
> 
>  **nwspaprtaxis** : I was just the enabler and loaned the use of Bucky's therapist, Cebisa (she first appears in [CONSCRIPTION](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14529327), but that fic has no direct bearing on this one). *shrugs*

Gcina, the unofficial headman of their little village, swears this one goat has never managed to give birth during daylight or dry weather, and considering that there's a currently a thunderstorm in the middle of a season when there really shouldn't be one, Bucky is inclined to believe her.

Said goat also does not deliver easily, which means he and a couple of others are stuck in the shelter all night on baby-watch. Things are going well, though, not at all like Gcina warned, until the new kid plops onto the hay, leaving a smear of blood on his fingers, right as the thunder leaves off booming to impersonate the crack of a gun.

Just like that, he's not in Wakanda, but standing in front of some piece of suburbia gunning down a bearded man with paint on his fingers.

He knows that man.

Bucky comes back to himself halfway to the water. The rain's coming down so hard it practically blinds him, but it's a big river, hard to miss. The shawl he uses as a makeshift carrying sling is full of rocks, heavy enough to strain the soaked, worn cloth, and even as he recognizes the weight he's stooping to grab another one and shove it into a pocket.

He's not going to be the one who kills Steve. Not after everything Steve's done for him. He's _not_. If Wakanda can't fix him, he's better off dead. He can't swim all that well without a prosthetic, and the water is at least ten feet deep. If he tangles himself up with enough weight and fabric—

He makes it waist-deep before the rest of the nightshift and the insomniacs catch up and drag him back out of the water. They would have had no chance against the Soldier, but Bucky Barnes, caught in a flashback and down an arm....

Normal villagers might not have managed, but even crippled and psychologically damaged War Dogs, border guards, and Dora are a formidable force.

He's hauled to shore. He's off-balance and can't catch himself and winds up falling on his face into the mud. Save first. Be nice later.

And then someone—Gcina, he thinks—is pulling him up out of the mud—not exactly gently, but he doesn't want _gentle_ right now—and wrapping a blanket around him. It's one of the shield-blankets, heavy with vibranium threads; he can feel the energy soaking into him. It'll help keep him warm until he can dry off, but it causes all kinds of sympathy-sparks in the leftover wires in his stump, shooting up his neck and making him jittery.

Nobody asks what happened. Now that the immediate danger is past, most of them disperse back into the night, leaving him to Gcina to manage. They're a community of wounded minds; he's not the first one to try to kill himself out of the blue. Hell, he's pulled a couple from the edge himself. It's what they do, here in their little safe space.

"Cebisa," he gasps, shivering. He can't remember who's on call tonight, but this— He needs _his_ therapist, the one who knows his history, knows about the Soldier. Knows _him_.

When he's finally able to stand, still half in shock, the nerves up and down his left side still twitching, Gcina takes him in. She finds him a cloak to replace the blanket, never mind that he's already soaked, and a light against the dark, and steers him down the pitch-black trails to the bright city edge and then onto the train.

He's so miserable, part of his brain still trying to figure out a way to get past Gcina and off the edge of one of these elevated platforms, that he doesn't realize they're not in the main psych building until he's standing in front of a door dripping onto blue and black carpet. He can't read Wakandan writing yet, but the characters on the door don't look the same as in the official buildings.

Gcina leans against the doorbell—some things are universal—until the door slides open and Cebisa is standing there in a purple wrap, blinking sleepily at them. He almost doesn't recognize her without her tall saucer-like headdress. She shushes somebody in the room behind her in a quick rush of isiXhosa. "Bucky? Gcina?" she asks. "What's wrong?"

"He tried to drown himself," Gcina says flatly, because Gcina wouldn't know tact if it came up and bit her. "He wanted you, and all things considered—"

The sleep falls away into professionalism, and he's so fucking grateful for it. "No, no, of course. Bucky, what—"

"The goat—a birthing—there was blood and then there was thunder and I saw—I saw—" He stumbles, not sure he's going to be able to force the words out. Hell, he doesn't know what he's even trying to say.

"Bucky." Cebisa's voice is soft. "Why don't you come inside?" She steps aside, holding the door open for them.

He's shaking his head. He can't. He can't. Cebisa's his therapist. He's not supposed to know anything about her. He's not supposed to cross into her personal life. There's boundaries. And the Soldier knows boundaries. He needs…. He doesn't know what he needs. But it's not this. He shouldn't be here.

"You remembered a mission? A new one? We know this can—" Cebisa's still talking. He registers the word _mission_ and the world sharpens and tunnels at the same time. Hallway. Wakanda. Cebisa's place, apparently. Not the palace or the psych center. Not that suburban house with a dead man in the door.

His breathing is too loud in his ears as he tries to ground himself. He can't lose control. Not here. Sweet Jesus, he doesn't want to cause any more collateral damage. There's already been enough because of him.

Gcina takes his arm, her grip firm, and it's too much like the way he was manhandled by the Soldier's keepers. "Don't touch me!" he howls, dipping his shoulder and checking into her. He's free for a moment and there's nothing but him and the Soldier in his head. Then there's a pair of hands on him and he shoves. He thinks he hears the impact of a body into a wall. He reaches out blindly, grabs the door and pulls. He hears wood splinter.

"It's not just a mission!" he screams. A figure comes at him and he lashes out again, but there are two of them and he's minus an arm. " _I killed Steve!_ "

 

***

 

He wakes in the soft sterile white of one of the crisis rooms. He's not strapped down, but only because Wakanda doesn't use things that crude. He may be able to sit up, but he won't make it very much farther.

Cebisa is talking to one of the techs, the guy with River Tribe plates who never speaks English if he can help it and clearly doesn't approve of using Wakandan resources on non-Wakandans, even at the King's orders. He's grateful Cebisa's here to run interference for him. He barely has the energy to keep his eyes open, much less be coherent in a language he's just starting to piece together.

"You became...aggressive," she says apologetically, coming to his side before he can even get the words out. She's closer to him than she has any right to be. It's not safe. She's wearing her hat, and the room is bright despite the lack of windows. It must be daytime—the lights in these rooms brighten and dim in relation to the hour and one's circadian rhythm. He's exhausted, his head cottony. "Gcina managed to inject you, and I called for help and had you brought here."

That would be why he doesn't remember anything. And why his neck is stiff, sharp pain still radiating from his ear to his stump. Even with their advanced drugs, it takes a massive dose to knock him out, and that has side effects. And if _Cebisa_ says he got aggressive.... He really doesn't want to know what he almost did. "Sorry," he mutters. He means it, despite his tone.

"No harm was done." Cebisa's expression is neutral. She doesn't look hurt, nor does she seem perturbed. "It happens to the best of us." A pause. "How are you feeling?"

Even though he was half-expecting the question, it still catches him off-guard. His breathing quickens with panic, even though he knows he's safe and there's no such thing as wrong answers here.

"Physically," Cebisa interrupts in her clinician tone. "Start with that."

Bucky exhales. "Tired," he admits. "Sore."

Cebisa tilts her chin. "I'll see if something can be done to help you with that." She pauses. "Is the pain bad?"

Bucky shakes his head. The pillow crinkles under his head. " _Hayi_." The word sticks and doesn't make it all the way out. He clears his throat. He's too tired, too confused to attempt isiXhosa again, and switches to English. "Thirsty."

Cebisa turns to the tech with the mouth-plates and speaks in a series of whispered clicks. A glass filled halfway with water is handed to her. Bucky knows it's shatter-proof plastic, paper straw stuck into the clear liquid. Nothing that can be used as a weapon. Smart. He lets the thought go as Cebisa slides the end of the straw into his mouth. He sucks down the water. He's embarrassed at how desperate he is. "Thanks," he whispers raspily. He tries to repeat the word in isiXhosa— _enkosi_ , one of the few he knows—for the tech's benefit, but it comes out Romanian instead.

"Anything else?" Cebisa presses neutrally.

"I don't—" He swallows, breathes. "I—" He doesn't know, he can't find the words and there's too much pressure inside him. His skin feels tight and he wants to run or scream, but he can't and he's so _tired_. A tear slips from his eye, runs across his temple into his hair. He scrabbles at the sheet with his feet, pushing against the mattress.

"It's all right," Cebisa says. And her voice, even and clinical, helps ground him. He calms enough to lie still, even though he feels like his brain is about to explode. "Let's take a step away from that for now. We're here in Crisis Room Three—" Bucky almost wants to hug her for avoiding one of his numbers "—and no one is going to hurt you. You are safe." He lets her words reassure him and exhales slowly, letting go of some of the panic.

Cebisa smiles gently at him when he lets out another shaky exhale. "I knew you could do it," she tells him. There's a pause and, more cautiously, "I think it might be a good idea to place a temporary implant for a few days. No addictive mind-controlling substances, I promise— just something to keep you calm until we've worked through this." He's relieved she doesn't use the word _setback_ or _crisis_.

" _No_ ," he snaps, "I got enough shit in my head." The one implant he allowed Shuri to insert into his brain is necessary—it blocks any recognition of those ten Russian words by his language centers to prevent anybody from triggering the Soldier. He can't even count to twenty in Russian without skipping three numbers; _one_ and _nine_ and _seventeen_ always come out in some other language—usually English, but Yiddish and Japanese a couple of times. And Shuri had done some prelim work so the damaged nerves in his shoulder would accept a prosthesis in the future, if he ever felt ready. Anything else, though—

"This would be behind the ear," Cebisa says, and steps closer. He snarls at her, warning her to stay away. Whatever force field they have up, she's tempting fate. She holds up her hands, palms out, meant to indicate that she is not a threat. "Subcutaneous, not cranial. We wouldn't even need the princess to perform surgery. You would be in complete control of it."

"Like I am of everything else?" he yells. "I fucking killed my best friend!"

"Bucky," she says, soothingly, and he reacts like somebody tried to pet the Soldier, lunging for her and slamming nose-first into the force field at the edge of the bed. He blinks, eyes watering.

She doesn't even flinch. "We checked, just in case. Captain Rogers is perfectly fine. He and his team are in South America."

"That can't be—"

"Would you like to see the recording?"

"Recordings can be faked!"

The tech says something, a rapid whisper and click. Cebisa nods, her dark eyes troubled.

The force field contracts, forcing him down onto the bed, and there's a hissing in his ear as something's injected into— _fuck_ —his jugular, and he falls into darkness.

 

***

 

Somewhere nearby there's the soft whispers of Wakandan isiXhosa, too fast for him to quite make out—and then somebody switches to English, like they know he's awake to hear. With their monitors, they just might. "Majesty, I have not seen him in this state, not even the first time we tested the deprogramming. He will not accept any reassurances about Captain Rogers, and he threatens violence if contradicted. We may need to return him to the cryo chamber to tweak the subliminals, just until we figure out how best to handle—"

"Not yet. Let me speak to Captain Rogers first. Last time, he asked that we not use cryo again unless there was no alternative. They were nearly finished with their mission; he can be here in six hours."

_Steve._

_No._

"No," he croaks, and the whispers go silent. He shoves memories away—takes a deep breath and focuses on the here and now, the way Cebisa has taught him. He doesn't try to sit up, since the force field is probably only allowing him enough leeway to breathe and move his head, and looks up at T'Challa. He hopes the king can see his desperation. "I'll take the implant. Drugs. Freezer. Anything. Paralyze me so I can talk to Cebisa without being a threat if you have to. But don't call Steve." He forces himself to take another ragged breath. "Please." He can't remember the last time he begged.

T'Challa looks at him—impassive? With sympathy? It makes him slightly uneasy, the way he's still not able to read the man, but he trusts the King. "Are you certain? He will want to know."

"I—I can't see him like this." Not until he understands. If he sees Steve right now, he's not sure if he'll hug him or try to kill him. A handful of people survived his missions before, through miracles or good Samaritans or sheer dumb luck. The Soldier's keepers had anticipated that. The programming was simple: Stumble across an inexplicable loose end, _tie it_. He's not sure how much work they've done on that, if they've even gotten to it yet. They've been solidly focused on the trigger words, not the cleanup protocols, since the assumption has been that the triggers control _everything_ , and he's not ready to risk it.

He can't.

 

***

 

He doesn't go back to the village, not yet. Gcina assures him the new kid is doing fine and sends him one of her mother's blankets, vibranium-free, green and blue, smelling of hay and outdoors, to dull the sterility of his temporary home in Crisis Room Three. He spends entirely too much time huddled in the corner of his room with it draped around him.

The new implant is a dime-sized patch behind the ear that barely pierces the skin; he has more pain after a day of minding goats one-handed. A Dora accompanies him to Cebisa's office and back—security for everyone, a sign of precisely how dangerous he is, but also a very high honor, one he totally doesn't deserve. It's a sign of trust from Cebisa and T'Challa, and a silent message to everyone else. If he were _really_ dangerous, she'd be seeing him in a crisis room with a force field pinning him down.

He refuses to sit down. He's still too antsy.

"So," she says, as if this were any other session and he hasn't had to be drugged into submission multiple times in seventy-two hours. "Tell me about this new memory."

"It doesn't make sense."

He starts pacing. He seldom paces in his sessions—Cebisa is a calming influence anywhere, but here in her office, she radiates soothing peace, like the way raw vibranium glows.

"It will," she promises, "but not unless you calm enough to think rationally." She smiles, a bit. "You may continue to pace, if it helps. The carpet is sturdy."

He rakes his hand through his hair. He knows that voice. This is going to be a long-ass session.

"Let's start with the obvious. This is a memory."

"Yes." God, he's never going to forget this, the way he sometimes can with the others; he'd _shot_ Steve, several times, and Steve had— "He laughed. I killed him and he fucking _laughed_ at me!"

For a moment, Cebisa looks as confused as he is, but she covers quickly. "In the memory?"

"Yeah."

"Bucky. What is first?"

He stops pacing. Makes himself take a deep breath. This is their routine when it comes to memories of his missions, a series of careful steps. _Verify that it's a memory, not a nightmare. Identify the target. Restate the mission parameters._ It's like a debriefing, but without the threat of pain if he doesn't give the right answer quickly enough. The familiarity helps, a little, and Cebisa is good at knowing when to step in. "It feels like all the others," he says, trying to force down the emotion. "It's sharp. Clear. The flashback nearly knocked me over. I had an emotional overreaction." He almost snorts; what a lame way to say _attempted suicide_. "That's not how I react to bad dreams. Or even memories before the Soldier. It _has_ to be a memory."

"Very good. What is second?"

 _Identify the target._ "I've known him all my life! I fucking _know_ it was Steve!" The panic is getting away from him again.

"Perhaps—"

"No, no, you're right." He reaches up behind his ear, taps the implant, and it works its magic. The emotion doesn't go away, but subsides enough to let him think clearly. It's nothing like being the Soldier—he's still _himself_. "It was Steve. But older. A _lot_ older. How could he be older?" He rubs his temple. "This was—" He summons the memory, analytically focuses on the cars, the clothes, the hair. "Jesus, Cebisa, it was the _late seventies!_ They sent me to kill Peggy Carter's husband!"

She makes a note of that. After the session, she'll go to the archives, which he is still not allowed to do, and find out precisely when this happened. Between his fragmented memories and her cross-referencing, they have almost his entire career sketched out now. He's still not entirely sure how he feels about that. "What do you remember of the mission parameters?"

The familiarity of the question helps. She asks it at least once a session, to help him distance himself from the emotion of the moment. "Just the name, and the reason. The first name was Steve, but the last name was wrong. It—" He frowns. "It was the same as a guy from my unit. He was killed—I saw him die. Explosion. But I don't think they ever found his body or tags, so he was only presumed KIA." He thinks a second. "I told Steve about him, on our way back to camp after we got free. It wouldn't have been that hard to turn it into a new identity."

"Are you sure this wasn't him?"

"Definite. It was my Steve. The other guy had brown eyes and was three inches shorter. How could it be Steve?"

Another note. "How old are you? In calendar years, I mean."

"What difference— Oh, I get it. Weird shit happens in my world."

That earns him a bit of a smile. Even here in Wakanda, after all, not a lot of her clients are centenarians. Most people his age are staring down death, and that makes therapy a low priority. "There may be a perfectly rational explanation. There may be more you have not remembered yet. Why did they send you after this man?"

"His wife was doing things that the client didn't like. They didn't want her out, just...less annoying. Maybe they thought the grief would distract her from whatever they wanted." Clearly, that client had never _met_ Agent Carter, but he thinks some of his missions had been less "grand plan to shape a century" and more "we need some cash." Especially once the Soviets fell. Some of the late eighties and early nineties missions make no sense otherwise. 

That's when he realizes what he said. _His wife._ When the _hell_ did Steve get a wife? _How?_ Peggy Carter is _dead_ , dead of _old age_ , she died right before the UN bombing, and he knows for damn sure that Steve wasn't married then!

"Bucky?" Cebisa interrupts softly.

"Nothing," he says, then thinks better of it—after all, she's his therapist and there's no bullshitting her. "I—" He falters. He's not ready for this. His brain swirls, trying to sort out faces, names. A headache sharpens behind his eyes. He's got a few minutes before it becomes a full-blown migraine. He reaches up, absently brushes his fingers against the implant again.

Cebisa waits, giving him the time and space to process. He knows she won't berate him if he drops a thread and for that he's grateful. He's not ready. _And that's okay,_ he can imagine Cebisa telling him. _We can revisit that later, if and when it ever comes up again. Not everything has to be resolved today._

"What is most important to you right now?" Cebisa's tone is neutral.

Decision made, the headache subsides as calm floods his system.

"I— I thought I remembered all of them," he whispers. It's a tangent, but it's also _not_ , and he knows Cebisa will help him connect the dots later. This is what's important. "So many.... But I didn't know this. Not even a glimpse. I didn't even remember the place."

Cebisa taps her chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps you did, once." He looks at her. "After the helicarrier—you have told me, that first time, when you pulled Captain Rogers out of the water, you thought about staying. But have you ever thought about _why_ you didn't? Why you ran from the one man who ever offered you help?"

He ran because he was in danger. Because that man who interfered with his programming was injured, badly, and the authorities were coming. He's _told_ her that.

But....

"The Soldier wasn't made for that kind of thinking," he admits finally. "Seeing someone he thought he killed later— There's contingencies for that. But seeing that person _younger_ —" He shakes his head. This is giving him a headache. He suspects he's going to have it for a long time.

"Perhaps your brain simply could not take it, and that's why you ran. Looking for a place that would make sense."

He nods slowly. "I can see that. And when it couldn't, I just buried it. The more I remembered about Steve, the less I could face the thought of killing him, so the farther down I shoved it."

"Exactly." She smiles. "See? I told you there would come a day when you would understand your own mind better."

He snorts. "And one day I'm not doing anything and it explodes and ruins my life."

"Did it?" she asks, a little sharply. "Or did it appear now because you know, deep down, you are finally able to handle it? Nothing has changed, Bucky. You remain a guest of Wakanda, you still have your place in the village, you still have your treatment. This is just...a brief fever. Nothing more. Even the healthiest of us can suffer sudden illness."

She's right enough about that—hell, not a month ago Gcina was laid up with a virus and he never assumed that was going to ruin her life. He just has to learn to think of this the same way.

But still….

"How much more do you think I can't remember?" he finally asks, scared of the answer.

"In terms of individual missions?" He nods. "I doubt very many, if any at all. I think you only buried this one so deeply _because_ it was Captain Rogers."

It's weird, the relief he feels at that, but— Remembering those victims, regretting what he did, is what makes him different from the Soldier.

"And that alone must have been a very confusing and unsettling thing—even for the Soldier," Cebisa continues. "Maybe especially for the Soldier. To have a target laugh." She lets the statement hang in the air between them. The silence swells.

He sinks into the chair. He's still so tired. "I can't see him. Not yet." Not for awhile. God, just last week, Steve had called, and he'd had so much to tell him—about the village, the goats, how this city boy is turning into a fucking _farmer_ , how he's just getting _better_ , and made Steve promise to come in for his birthday so he could give him his present: a blanket woven by Gcina's mother, in the design that told the Wakandan origin story, only in stark black and white. He'd spent two months helping Gcina with a roof repair in trade for it. Now....

"I think that would be best, yes."

Bucky slumps.

Christ. Steve's going to think he's backslid. Or worse. "He'll want to know why. And this— I can't tell him this. He'll never trust me again."

"You've tried to kill him before. Several times, if I recall. He still trusts you." She adds delicately, "If he did not, you would not have survived the helicarrier."

Bucky doesn't contradict her. There was no extraction plan for the Soldier if a mission wasn't accomplished successfully, and anybody with any sense—anybody but Steve—would have left him pinned under that beam and not fought his way back through falling debris and with a gunshot wound to give him a chance. Hell, Captain America would've probably gotten a medal from the President for ridding the world of the Winter Soldier.

Instead, for some unfathomable reason, he's here.

 

***

 

It takes a couple of months. Nearly eight weeks of daily sessions focused on nothing but this mission where he apparently did the impossible and killed his best friend. While his best friend was supposed to be an ice cube in the Arctic but was also apparently living in suburbia under an assumed name.

It's a good thing he's not trying to make actual _sense_ of this memory, just come to grips with the fact that he has it. If he had to make sense of it, he's pretty sure his brain would fry. More. Again. Whatever.

That's only part of the journey. It's only the time it takes him to find enough equilibrium that he and Cebisa and T'Challa are comfortable allowing Steve back in Wakanda for his overdue birthday visit. Bucky's still wearing the implant, still waking up at night screaming, still hallucinating blood and gunfire at odd intervals, still fighting the urge to kill himself. But he's out of the crisis room, out of the city, back in the village. His herd grows.

It helps that absolutely nothing riles Gcina. He could puke on her feet from a gory hallucination, and when he's done, she'll just help him clean up, then shove a bucket at him and remind him that goats don't milk themselves.

Steve notices the implant right off, despite it being mostly hidden by Bucky's hair. Steve doesn't miss a whole lot, dammit. But he also doesn't pry, for which Bucky is grateful. Maybe T'Challa told him something—nothing that would violate Bucky's privacy, of course, the Wakandans don't _do_ that, but a carefully-phrased warning. Because Steve is very cautious to keep the conversation to times before his fall or since Siberia, and when the topics do occasionally stray, it's to non-work-related things. The way he and his exiled former Avengers managed to disarm the monitoring on Barton's place so they could invade the archer's house and throw him a surprise birthday party, for instance.

Bucky never knew that nearly taking an arrow to the head could be so _funny_ , but it's good—and kind of healing—to see Steve laugh.

It's better after that.

Before Steve's next visit, he's able to get rid of the implant.

He has a rough patch when Steve shows up with a beard, because for several seconds all he can see is that other Steve spitting blood as he dies, laughing in the Soldier's face—but he's able to choke down the reaction as long as Steve's there, and so what that he spends the entire next week camped out in Cebisa's office, huddled under that green and blue blanket?

As long as Steve _doesn't know_ , he can take it. Everything Steve has done for him is based on his hopelessly naïve belief that Bucky would never, _ever_ hurt him, not even as the Soldier. Anybody else would have killed the Soldier on principle, not tried to talk him down.

He can't break that trust.

He _can't_.

 

***

 

It's weird, coming back from the dead. It's a little like waking up from being the Soldier, except for once, half the world is just as confused as he is.

The last five years have been hard on Steve, that much is obvious. Steve reminds him more of the angry, runty kid who wouldn't back down from a fight than the Star-Spangled-Man-With-A-Plan he'd been during the war, or even the guy who had come to get him in Bucharest. Swears a lot more, too. And while he's clearly thrilled to have Sam and Bucky back, anybody who knows him even a little can tell that the loss of Romanoff cuts deeper than he wants to admit. Maybe more than anything ever has, except when Bucky fell from that train.

Oh, there's grief for Stark, too, but it seems easier to bear. Maybe it's the differing circumstances of their deaths. Or maybe it's just because so many more people knew Stark. All the Avengers had a certain measure of fame, but as a spy, the Black Widow had determinedly, actively avoided it. There are fewer people to share that grief. Fewer still who knew her as _Nat_ , not _Agent Romanoff_.

But if he presses too hard, Steve will just clam up, and besides, Sam's the wanna-be shrink, not him. Bucky's not interested in psychoanalyzing his friends. He's enough of a mess.

So he listens, the night before Steve's going to go return the stones, lets Steve reminisce about Stark and Romanoff and all the others. It's plain to him that seeing Peggy again woke up a whole lot that Steve thought was gone. He hasn't heard Steve talk this much or this animatedly about her since one night in Belgium in 1944, when it was so cold they couldn't dare sleep and the coffee ran out and they were grabbing at _any_ conversation to stay awake.

The night's half gone, the two of them toasting absent friends—there's a lot of those, when you're a hundred years old, thank God for enhanced metabolism—and Steve has managed to imbibe enough of Thor's special super-strong alien whiskey to actually make him a little tipsy when he broaches the idea of taking a little side trip to give her that dance he promised.

Just like that, the pieces click together, and Bucky finally— _finally_ —understands.

 

***

 

He thinks briefly about calling Cebisa, asking her advice—these days, he's considered Wakandan enough to rate kimoyo beads, even if they're only linked to Cebisa for emergencies—but by his math, the time zones are not in his favor, and it's not like he's a danger to himself or others at the moment. Besides, she's _his_ therapist, not Steve's, and this ultimately comes down to whatever's going on inside Steve's head, not his.

Steve resists. Hell, Bucky's suggestion that he go through with it startles him completely sober. But Bucky has the advantage in this argument: he knows the outcome.

And then they're making plans, Steve's eyes bright and hopeful in a way they haven't been since Brooklyn two fucking lifetimes ago, even the grief of these past few weeks a little dimmer.

God, he hopes he's doing the right thing.

 

***

 

Banner and Sam have no idea, of course. They think his and Steve's exchange is just a little before-mission ritual.

Steve doesn't either, really. Steve thinks he'll visit for a couple of days and then he'll come back and let Peggy move on with her life.

Maybe he should have told him, but.... He knows Steve. Banner's been preaching the dangers of time travel for the last week, sometimes with diagrams. If Bucky tells him, Steve will change his mind. Or worse—he'll try to change what happened.

Does he deserve to be killed by the Soldier? No, nobody ever did. But Steve deserves whatever chance at domestic bliss he can have.

It's the Soldier's last secret, and Bucky plans on taking this one all the way to his own damn grave. Cebisa's voice echoes in his head, reminding him gently and firmly that the Soldier's sins are not his, but she's going to have to work on him a lot more before he actually believes that.

The words can't be said aloud, so Bucky thinks them at Steve, a silent benediction for a one-way trip: _It's okay that you can't save me any earlier. I'm safe now. And no, I won't forgive you. Because there's nothing to forgive. Just...forgive_ me _. Please._

Steve vanishes, and Banner counts, and Bucky waits. He wants to run, be anywhere but here, but Sam's gonna need him when Steve doesn't reappear, and Banner will deserve an explanation.

He has a sudden horrible vision of Steve's older, bullet-ridden body reappearing there on the platform, and he swallows hard against the rising bile in the back of his throat. He doesn't know if the quantum thingie works like that—hell, he doesn't understand much of it at all, even with Banner's visual aids—but just in case, he turns away. Maybe he's hoping his memories will suddenly shatter and reassemble into another configuration entirely, one where he didn't watch Steve die at his hand. But he definitely doesn't want his last memory of Steve to be a corpse spilling blood all over Banner's time machine.

There's a man sitting by the lake.

He knows that silhouette. It's thinner, a little more stooped, less Captain America than a certain scrawny kid from Brooklyn, and he thinks the hair might be lighter—

He should have known.

The Soldier killed Peggy Carter's husband.

But apparently—incredibly—he somehow didn't kill Steve Rogers.

 

**_the end_ **


End file.
